View full sizeBruce Ely, The OregonianA single engine Cesna belonging to Hillsboro Aviation does touch-and-goes at the Hillsboro Airport (April 24, 2012).

HILLSBORO -- The Hillsboro Airport is a point of both pride and consternation in the community – a signal of the city's importance and international business clout, but also the origin of noise complaints and other issues tied to the busy aviation facility.

Bill Wyatt, Port of Portland executive director, hosted a public forum at a Washington County building in Hillsboro on Thursday, his first in the community in several years.

For more than an hour, Wyatt heard concerns about noise levels, perpetual takeoff and landings at odd hours, low-flying planes, pollutants from leaded fuel and worries about the long-term plans for the facility.

Name change for airport citizen group

The Port’s citizen advisory committee updated its charter and name Thursday. The Hillsboro Airport Issues Roundtable, or HAIR, is no more. The renamed organization, Hillsboro Airport Roundtable Exchange, is now known as HARE. The 19-person group currently has three vacancies.

Members revised the group's mission and name to highlight “more community involvement,” according to chair Fred Hostetler. Prior to the revised statute, the chair was appointed by the Port. The group is intended to be a sounding board and serve in an advisory sense to the Port. Hostetler likened the prior charter to a “fox guarding the chicken coop.” Future chairs will serve a two-year term and be voted in. Chairs will be either a citizen, airport business representative or Hillsboro business member.

The airport, one of the busiest in Oregon, accounted for 214,243 takeoffs and landings in 2011.

The port owns and operates the Hillsboro Airport as well as the Portland International and Troutdale airports. Wyatt called the airport a "significant strategic asset for this region."

He rebuked questions that the airport may expand into commercial air travel, citing the prohibitive costs necessary to build-up security measures and lure airlines. "This isn't going to be a build it and they will come situation," Wyatt said.

Much of the concern throughout the night returned to the frequency and flight path of flights by students attending Hillsboro Aviation's flight school.

"They dip at me when I'm in my yard," Ruth Warren, a Hillsboro resident, said of the persistent flyovers. She asked Wyatt to speak with Hillsboro Aviation owner Max Lyons directly. "We will definitely speak with Max," Wyatt said.

Miki Barnes, a long-time critic of the airport, questioned the motives of Chinese students in the program, their qualifications and U.S. rationale in training foreign pilots despite China's "deplorable human rights" record.

Wyatt defended the legitimacy and backgrounds of students at the school, not just Chinese ones, citing stringent Visa requirements and Transportation Security Administration background checks.

"I'm happy they are training in this country and not that country," Wyatt said, referring to China. He described Oregon's relationship with China as "imperfect" but he defended the economic reasoning, saying Oregon is a net exporter to the country.

After the meeting, Wyatt said he enjoys attending the town hall events. This was his third Hillsboro town hall, he estimated, in his 11-years as executive director.

Wyatt said he does plan to speak with Lyons about citizen complaints, but added, "I think some of this is unfair."

"I think it's a great thing," he said of the flight school. "It's an export."

Some citizens expressed controls about the use of leaded fuels by small aircraft and the impact on children growing up near the airport. Wyatt defended Hillsboro's air quality. Steve Nagy, Port of Portland's general aviation manager, said the Federal Aviation Administration is taking steps to address the leaded fuel problem in small engine planes.